Page:Confederate Military History - 1899 - Volume 3.djvu/1225

Rh George Ross, M. D., now a distinguished physician and surgeon of Richmond, Va., was among the earliest Virginia volunteers in 1861, and during the struggle which followed held various important positions in the medical department of the army of Northern Virginia. Dr. Ross was born in Culpeper county in 1838. He was graduated at the Virginia military institute July 4, 1859, and then pursued a medical course at the university of Virginia, which conferred upon him the degree of M. D. July 4, 1861. Before that date, however, he had left the university to take part in that outburst of the State's military spirit which was coincident with the ordinance of secession. On the day of that act of the convention, April 17th, he went to Harper's Ferry as first lieutenant of the Southern Guards, a rare body of spirited university students. Two weeks later the company was ordered back to the university by Governor Letcher, and he then received his professional degree, and was made superintendent and commandant of the military school which was established at the university about July 1st by the board of visitors. He served in this capacity about four months, also as acting assistant surgeon of the hospital at Charlottesville, where many of the wounded were brought from the field of Manassas. In November following he organized a battalion of artillery, but was disappointed on entering this service by the lack of guns with which to equip his command. He then accepted a commission as assistant surgeon, and was assigned to the Banner hospital at Richmond. Just before the battle of Seven Pines, and in preparation for that conflict, he was detailed to organize Crew's factory hospital, where with three hundred beds and seven assistants he cared for the wounded of the succeeding campaign. Being assigned in the fall of 1862 to Chimborazo hospital, he served there until just before the battle of Gettysburg, when he was ordered to the front. He met the army on the return at Front Royal, and was temporarily placed in charge of the reserve hospital corps of the Third army corps. Subsequently being assigned to the staff of Gen. A. P. Hill, as associate medical director of the Third army corps, he served in that capacity during the battle at Bristoe Station, and skirmishes at Brandy Station, in the campaign around Mine Run, during the withdrawal of the army from the Rappahannock to the Rapidan. In February, 1864, he resigned this position, and later at the request of Governor Letcher joined the little Confederate army in the Valley campaign of May, 1864, as surgeon of the battalion of cadets from the Virginia military institute, and was in the battles of Lynchburg and New Market, where the cadets fought with such gallantry and heavy loss. During the siege of Richmond and Petersburg he served until the evacuation, when he attempted to join the army in North Carolina, but returned from Lexington and then made his home at Richmond without the formality of a parole. Since that time he has practiced his profession with great success and with many honorable evidences of appreciation. From 1868 to 1878 he was engaged as the lecturer on anatomy and surgery in the summer school of the medical college of Virginia; filled the chair of obstetrics for several years in the university college of medicine at Richmond, of which he is emeritus professor in the present faculty; was member of the first State health board by appointment of Governor Walker; was chief surgeon